


a theology of fear

by simaetha



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Akallabêth, Gen, Númenor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3817966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simaetha/pseuds/simaetha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tar-Míriel, her marriage, and her gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a theology of fear

This is one of your earliest memories.

_Look_ , your father says, your small hand wrapped up in his large, calloused fingers. _Look, Míriel_. He points.

A clear, cool day, the sky pale and bright. Here on the heights of Meneltarma, the east wind tugs at your clothes, pulls strands of your father's dark hair out from under the engraved silver circlet he wears, patterned with stars and flowers.

When he looks down at you, the faint lines around the corners of his eyes crease up as he smiles.

_Look, Míriel_ , he says again.

Towards the horizon in the west, the sea is an endless shining expanse, the ocean catching and reflecting the morning light. You narrow your eyes and peer across it, shading your vision with one hand.

Then you see:

A white tower, rising out of a white city, and a harbour all of pale stone. Ships float like petals on the water. The city belongs to the morning light, is limned and bounded by it; as if the people in that city cast no shadows, know no darkness, live only in beauty from daybreak until dusk.

You draw in a breath, as if you could take that sight within you, like the cold air.

But when you look away, your eyes blurring with tears, your father is gazing still, his face caught up with rapture; and he will not look away, not though you tug at his hand and call out to him, long after vision has faded into the dazzling light of the rising sun.

***

_My star_ , your father calls you, _my dove, my jewel_.

You grow up precious, treasured, cherished. The lords and ladies of your father's court take pity on you, poor motherless maiden; you are indulged, slipped sweets and trinkets, allowed to escape from tutors and dull council meetings to braid ribbons in your hair and sigh over elven poetry.

Your world is tightly-bounded, self-contained as the pearl in an oyster. Every seventh-day you go with your father to tend the White Tree, the ritual silver implements in your hands; every year you walk the mountain path to the holy place in the heights, where the first apples of the Tree are offered up to Eru. Poets sing the praises of your delicate hands and moonlit face, your hair like a fall of night.

If there are mutterings and resentment, they do not concern you: why would they? You can imagine no world in which you are not protected.

_Have no fear, my sweet_ , your father says.  _The gods will provide._

You are unafraid. Your cousins laugh and toast your beauty, Amandil and Pharazôn competing for extravagance: to them you are Lúthien, Elwing, even Varda herself, lovely as the stars. From the harbours of Númenor great fleets sail, soldiers muster, adventurers sail out to the far lands of the north and south and east, each voyage further than before.

Pharazôn will tell you that he has seen the Gates of Morning; the far northlands where the sun never sets in summer and winter is an eternal night; the hot countries to the south where the natives dress only in paints and gemstones and wear the feathers of bright birds in their hair. From each voyage he brings you back stories and trinkets, _jewels for a jewel_ , the looted treasures of far-off nations.

But at night, when you are alone, it is not Pharazôn's stories that haunt you, colourful tales in which all battles are just and only enemies die; but the searing white light of paradise, that you saw once and have never forgotten.

***

The coronation.

It is hard for you to say exactly how you came to be here. Since your father's death, a dark cloud of grief seems to have come over you and the world; everything you say seems to fall away into silence after it passes your lips, as though your voice withered and died before reaching others' ears.

_I don't want to marry Pharazôn_ , you say. _My father is dead. I am the Queen._

_Poor Míriel_ , the courtiers sigh. The lords of Númenor, your father's councillors, pat your hand and tuck your hair behind your ears, as if you were a child; men you have known all your life as kindly uncles and grandfathers hear you and nod soothingly.

_Have no fear_ , they say. _Your cousin Pharazôn will take care of you._

You stand. You move. You put your hand into your cousin's, to be bound to his with a white cord; you take up your sceptre and pass it to him; you place your father's crown upon his head, then bow your own for him to crown you as Queen-Consort.

All this seems to happen at a great distance. Your cousin looks at you in concern, takes your cold hands between his to warm them, lifts your chin in his hand and tries to make you smile.

_I don't want to marry you_ , you tried to tell him days ago; but then, embarassingly, you burst into tears, shaking as you pressed your face into the gold-embroidered shoulder of his robe and felt his arms wrap around your shoulders.

_All hail Ar-Pharazôn and Ar-Zimraphel, King and Queen of Númenor!_ the herald cries, and the palace doors swing open onto a roar of light and noise.

***

You pray. Prayer seems to be all you can offer.

Your husband sailed away months ago, the White Tree of Númenor set above him as his flag, fluttering in the sea-breeze; with him went the fleet, a thousand high-prowed ships parting the waves with sail and oar.

You kneel in the open air of the courtyard, the way your people have always prayed, exposed to the elements around them, the sky and the sun and the stars. Your hands stretch before you in supplication; you press your forehead to the ground.

Ar-Pharazôn has gone to war against the Abhorred One, the Lord of Barad-dûr, called the Terrible and the Cruel.

_Manwë, King of the Gods, bring my husband success_ , you pray. _Varda, Star-Queen, watch over him. Tulkas, Great Warrior, put your strength into his arms._

A gentle breeze stirs the air around you. Your words fall onwards into the silence, cast out blindly towards unknown listeners across the uncharted waves.

_Lord of Mandos, have pity upon us, and turn your hand aside_ , you implore.

***

The White Tree burns. Your people burn.

The Temple rises over Armenelos, smoke and silver, its great dome like a challenge to the sky.

_Is this not beauty?_ says your husband's favourite adviser. _Is this not strength? Have not the lords of men exceeded all who came before them?_

_No_ , you want to say, _stop it_ , but you hold your tongue.

_Have you not conquered even such as I, who came once from the utmost West, and have I not laid my submission before you?_

The creature your husband calls Mairon - that your people call Zigûr, the Magician - smiles, lovely and terrible as the dawn.

_Are you not worthy of freedom, and life everlasting?_ it says, knife in one hand, blood from the sacrifice running down the altar and staining the hem of its sleeve.

When you flinch, Lord Mairon glances at you with abstract pleasure, the light in its eyes bright with alien warmth.

***

Later, the evening air warm and your room hot and close, the draped fabrics stifling -

You turn your head aside. It still hurts, every time, your body opening to his; you arch your back and grit your teeth. Perhaps the noises you make sound like pleasure.

Perhaps he would stop, if he knew.

_No_ , you want to say, but you can't. It would be worse, somehow, if you had said _no_ and it went on.

_Husband_ , you say, afterwards. _My king. Ar-Pharazôn._

_Míriel_ , he says, amused. _What would you have of me?_ He strokes a lock of your hair behind your ear and you sit up, wrapping the bedsheets around your shoulders.

_Don't trust him_ , you say. _Don't do this. Don't -_

_And why should I not_ , your husband says, _why should I not challenge even the undying lands, and take what is due to me, though the false gods withhold it; why should I be afraid -_

_They will destroy you_ , you say, _all of them alike -_

But you cannot convince him of what you learned too late: that the gods' mercy is the same as their cruelty; that the line between the Valar and his Mairon is as thin as the edge of a knife, and as finely-balanced.

_Don't_ , you say, but you cannot make him listen.

***

In the end, you pray, again.

Smoke rises from the Temple; fires burn in the West, like the sunset unending, as if your husband's fleets were so much kindling for the flame.

_I'm sorry_ , you try to say, _I'm sorry, please -_

And shouldn't it have been you who ruled as Queen, aren't they your people, just as much as Pharazôn's; can you not speak on their behalf -

The land shakes beneath you; even the holy mountain gives forth flames, and casts a pall of ash and soot across the sky.

_I'm sorry,_ you say, _take me instead, I didn't stop them, I didn't even try, aren't the sins of my people mine -_

_Do you really expect_ , the Abhorred One says, with laughter glittering in its eyes, _that there is anything you can do to change this?_

All real gods require sacrifice.

The wave rises over you like the end of the world.


End file.
